The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 15B

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg The 13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 15B August 18, 2024 Our gospel reading for today is the fourth out of five weeks in chapter 6 of the gospel of John where Jesus is talking to his disciples and others about bread. John’s gospel uses repetition of certain phrases to help emphasize points, and it is the only gospel of the four that doesn’t include Jesus’s Last Supper with his disciples. Instead, John has Jesus washing the disciples feet in their last night together. So our reading for today is the culmination of this chapter where Jesus talks about bread over and over again, and it is how the writer of John’s gospel chooses to introduce the Eucharist or Communion. But if we flash forward to next week’s gospel (which actually includes some lines from this week’s gospel), we see that Jesus’ original hearers, including some disciples, struggle with the difficulty of this teaching around the Eucharist. And that can actually be comforting to us. Because who in this church is willing to say that you actually understand what is happening in the Eucharist? (Don’t look at me!) We can certainly talk about it, about how experience it. We can talk about what we have been taught about it-like how eucharist is the Greek word that means thanksgiving. And even though we participate in it week after week after week, there’s an aspect of mystery to Eucharist that defies our language. It’s a mystery that we know through our participation, that invites us more into a heart knowledge than a head knowledge. When we come before God and hold out our hands, our hearts know that this act of thanksgiving is both about our individual relationships with God through Christ as well as how we are connected to God through Christ all together as Christ’s body. We know that this gift is something that is completely unearned on our part, something we may at times feel unworthy to receive, and it is the free gift of God’s love offered to all people, a sign that each of us is made by God and belongs to God and to each other. We know that even as the bread is broken, we come to the altar-each one of us-with all of our own brokenness, and we celebrate Jesus’s brokenness which heals our own. Today at St. Thomas, we are celebrating Back to School Sunday. We’re blessing students, teachers, and administrators. We’ve got Children’s Chapel resuming after its summer hiatus, and we’re celebrating the grand-reopening of our nursery. Today is a day when we intentionally celebrate children. And I think that children have a lot to teach us about how they receive Eucharist. I’ve often had parents tell me that they want their children to wait to receive Eucharist until they understand it. And I will say back to them, so do you understand it? Because I don’t. When I see children receiving communion, I see people who freely receive the gift of belonging that Jesus is offering without overthinking it. I see open hearts and small, open hands stretched out eagerly to receive. I think children have much they could teach us about what the Eucharist means, so in closing, I’ll share with you the book the kids are reading together in children’s chapel today. (Here we read the book We Gather at This Table written by Anna V. Ostenso Moore and illustrated by Peter Krueger.) Big Question this week: Think about how you experience the Eucharist or communion. How has God been revealed to you in the Eucharist? What lessons can children teach you about the Eucharist? What are you being invited to take from the Eucharist out into the world?